The Rich Roll Podcast - How PS244 Became the 1st U.S. Public School to Institute a Vegetarian School Lunch Program

Episode Date: June 5, 2013

Today on the show I visit New York's PS244 – The Active Learning Elementary School — in Flushing, Queens to chat with science teacher and Director of the school's Wellness and Nutrition Program Christian Ledesma, as well as PS244's Principal Bob Groff to find out how PS244 became the first public school in the United States to institute a vegetarian school lunch. But what I pleasantly discovered went well beyond a simple cafeteria upgrade. PS244's revolutionary school lunch program is just the latest manifestation of a school founded on principals of wellness. It's fair to say that the very fibre of PS244's DNA is the promotion of holistic health for kids premised on the advancement of not just the mind, but that of the childrens' bodies & character. And it shows. I saw food being grown in hanging gardens along the playground fences. Kindergartners making their own granola bars and tasting blackberries in after-school programs. Even a tower garden in the school library. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the day-to-day goings on at this special institute. What PS244 has accomplished — seemingly impossible within the confines of a very large & bureaucratic urban school district — is beyond inspiring. And yet obviously doable when passion aligns with faith and hard work. The bar is set. And my hope is that this school's example will empower other teachers, administrators, principals, parents and students to take greater initiative in their own schools and districts and aspire for positive change. Special thanks to Amie Hamlin, Executive Director of the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food. It was her and this organization, working tirelessly for several years in alliance with the New York Department of Education, that made the impossible real. My desire was to include Amie in this interview, but she was not in NYC on the day of my visit, so my plan is to interview her for a future podcast episode. Stay tuned! Enjoy the show! Rich

Welcome to episode 34 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Christian Ledesma and Bob Groth. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. My name is Rich Roll. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. Thanks for joining me today. I'm pretty excited about today's interview. A couple weeks ago, when I was back in New York City, I had the very good fortune to be invited to make the

trek from Manhattan out to Flushing, Queens to visit PS244, which is a public elementary school out in Flushing. It's actually, they like to call themselves the Active Learning Elementary School. It was founded in 2008 with a mission to educate a child's mind, body, and character. In other words, it's kind of a school where the principles of wellness are interwoven into the constitution or the DNA, the very fabric of what this school is all about. And it's a unique creature within the construct of a gigantic public school system. It's not a charter school. It's not a private school. It's not a pilot program. It is a typical public school. Yes, it's a little bit new and they're trying some different and interesting and unique things there. They made headlines at the beginning of May, international headlines actually, for being the first public school elementary school or otherwise to institute

a vegetarian school lunch which is a pretty maverick kind of paradigm busting groundbreaking move i'm sure there are some private schools out there with with uh vegetarian or vegan school lunch options but this is the first public school program to do so, not to mention a public school within, like lunchtime. It's kind of a reaction to, you know, ketchup is a vegetable and, you know, getting crappy sort of cheese pizza for lunch and the like. And what they're doing is not just vegetarian, but actually like whole food, plant-based options, like they're eating hummus and quinoa and all sorts of interesting, really healthy, delicious, and nutritious lunches there. And I was curious. I'd read about the school.

I tweeted about it when it happened and kind of came across my radar. And when I was going to New York, I reached out. I said, I really want to come by and check you guys out and meet you guys and see what you're doing. And I was so glad that they took the time to sit down with me. And by they, I mean, Christian Ledesma, who's a science teacher there, and also the director of health and nutrition, as well as Bob Groff, who is the principal of the school. So both of them sat down with me, we had a really amazing chat. And kind of what came out of that is the realization, you know, I thought I was going to go there and just kind of learn about their lunch program. And what I learned and what's not really

in the articles or in the headlines, what's not really captured or conveyed adequately, in my opinion, is this idea that, like I said before, wellness is really part of this school's DNA. Every aspect of the school kind of revolves around developing the child's, not just their mind, but their body and their character, like in the title of their school. And that translates beyond what's on their plate at lunchtime.

I arrived after school. So the kids were already out of session and most of the kids were gone, but they were running after school programs. And Christian gave me a little tour and I walked into a classroom where some kindergartners were doing a blackberry tasting and kind of sharing their thoughts and opinions about what they thought it tasted like and whether they liked it or not. And we walked down the hall and went into another classroom. And I think they were first graders, maybe kindergartners also were making their own granola bars. And then in the

back, out in the playground, you know, this is on a city block. So it's not like they're on some sort of pastoral landscape out in the countryside. They're in the middle of the city in Flushing. And on the blacktop, sort of along the fences, were hanging gardens, like these pouches where they're growing their own food. And in the library, they have a tower garden where they're growing greens in there. And it's pretty unique, and it was really, really cool. So it was an honor to sit down with Christian and with Bob. And also, what I wanted to do was also have a woman called Amy Hamlin join us for the interview. Unfortunately, she was not in the city on the day of the interview, and I'm hoping to record an interview with her later. And she's

sort of a key, or if not the key, critical player in how this school launch kind of evolved at this school. She's the executive director of an organization called the new york coalition coalition for healthy school food uh and that's the group that really kind of made this happen and they've they've been working with ps244 for years and they work with other schools obviously as well to kind of implement these these healthy programs for kids so this was a big victory uh for that organization new york coalition for healthy school food and and amy hamlin was really the one who kind of It was a big victory for that organization, New York Coalition for Healthy School Food. And Amy Hamlin was really the one who kind of spearheaded it and made it her sort of passion project and sort of babied and fostered it and tirelessly worked to make it happen. And she would have been a great addition to this interview.

But like I said, she wasn't around. And I've gone back and forth with her on email. I'm going to try to do a Skype interview with her because I really want to get her perspective on all of this. But I also didn't want to wait too long. I wanted to get this interview up and maybe spend more time with Amy on a separate episode. So look for that in the future. Before we get into it, a couple ways to link up with these guys. And I'll put this in the show notes as well. But if you want to find out more about what's going on at PS244, you can follow them on Twitter.

They're at PS244Q. And their website is PS244Q.org. Also, if you want to learn about their kind of fitness and nutrition educational programs, there's a site called fan4kids.org. That's fan4kids.org. It's also important to highlight where you can learn more about the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food. They're on Twitter as well. It's at Healthy School Food, all one word. On Facebook, they're Good twitter as well it's at healthy school food all one word and on facebook they're good school food and their website is healthy school food.org so check all that good stuff out like

i said i'll put that in the show notes as well father's day is coming up and so far be it from me to pitch my own book finding ultra which just came out in paperback, makes a great and cheap Father's Day gift. Why not, right? I think the last time I checked, it was like 12 bucks on Amazon, which is no big deal. It's like the price of one blueprint juice at Whole Foods. So check that out. And if you are going to check it out on Amazon, make sure you click through the Amazon banner ad on richroll.com. It's on the podcast page or on the blog page. You'll see it on the right-hand margin, just a little black banner ad for Amazon. Click that. It takes you to Amazon. Pick up the paperback. Pick up the

audio book, the hardcover, or pick up, if you don't want to buy my book or you already bought it and you're going to get something on Amazon anyway for father's day or otherwise use the banner ad and it's a great way to support the show doesn't cost you a cent extra but it throws a few nickels in our bucket and helps keep the bandwidth flowing and supports us and what we're doing which is great and a lot of you guys are doing it out there i check the purchases every once in a while and it's so heartwarming to see people using the banner ad to support the show. And every little bit adds up. If you're feeling extra generous,

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I can't believe how many people have donated you know money hard earned money out of their pocket to support what we're doing and it means a ton to me and it helps us keep the show free because the show will always be free it should always be free and i love doing it but it does take a lot of time and i'm trying to keep the quality high so like i said on an earlier episode i'm looking to kind

of take the production level that the production quality of the next level. I'm going to be hiring a producer and looking for some studio space and kind of notching it up a little bit. And that stuff costs money. So you want to help me help you or help me bring great guests to you. Then, yeah, man, the banner ad, Finding Ultra, the cookbook, donations, whatever you want to do. All right, enough. Enough of that. I'm getting tired of my own voice. We got a long interview for you today. These guys are great. And you will realize that I am not a professional broadcaster because when I was listening to this and kind of previewing it, I realized that I'm doing the interview with both Christian and Bob at the same time. And from time to time,

I should have chimed in to identify, you know, who was speaking, whether it was Christian or Bob. And, uh, I didn't really do that. So,

uh, they're both on the same page. Um, and I think you'll get an idea of, of who's who on your own, but my apologies for not being more clear about that. Nonetheless, these guys are bringing some great information to you. I'm completely inspired by what they're doing at this school.

It is a model for the next generation, for our new generation. And my hope and my dream is that other educators out there will listen to this, will hear what they're doing, will become inspired, and will start to take actions to implement changes within their own schools and school systems to kind of get things moving in the right direction when it comes to wellness. You know, with budgetary cuts and consolidations and sort of the political issues that come into play in school districts across the nation, it's very, very difficult to implement even the tiniest change. And the school lunch programs are a very hot-button issue. There's a lot of money at play.

There's a lot of lobbying and political interests that factor into the decisions that get made about the meals that are served to the kids. And so, like I said, even the slightest, most incremental change in a positive way, you know, on behalf of the kids or what have you, is very, very challenging to implement. And so, my hats are off to these guys for getting it done. And if they can do it, other schools can too. So, this is a call to action. to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming

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Reduce, reuse, recycle. Christian just gave me a tour of the school. School's already out, but there's some after-school programs going on, and I walked into a classroom where about, what would you say, eight or ten, were they kindergartners 10 kindergartners 10 kindergartners are doing a tasting they're tasting blackberries and sharing their feelings completely unstaged by the way yeah completely and then i walked into another classroom and they're making uh granola bars so what is going on here

welcome to our school yeah this is amazing you know you guys i'm really happy to be here uh you know as soon as i read this story uh i read the new york i think the first uh story i read was the one in the new york post and um then a couple other ones and i saw the uh i saw the story go national and then kind of ripple out and uh you guys have have created quite a seismic effect with this new vegetarian school lunch program that you've recently instituted. When did it start? Like May 1st? So the program itself as Full Vegetarian started in beginning of January. Oh, I see. So we had some time. We were working with some of the recipes, doing some adjustments, and then decided to announce in May when Office of School Foods and everybody was ready.

Right. And this was sort of a, correct me if I'm wrong, but kind of a natural progression of your collaboration with the New York Coalition for Healthy Schools. Is that the proper name of the organization? The New York Coalition for Healthy Schools. Is that the proper name of the organization? The New York Coalition for Healthy School Food. Right, exactly. And so you've been working with them for quite a while now, right? For five years since we started the school. And so how did that begin?

Explain to me the nature of that relationship and kind of how it led to this point of you instituting this really like maverick school lunch program. So this is our fifth year as a school. We had gotten together, two of us, Christian and I, gotten together with another teacher who is now our assistant principal, Hugh Harris, and the former principal, Ivan Tolentino. We had all gotten together and said,

we want to put together a school that has an opportunity to fight childhood obesity, fight childhood early onset diabetes. And we had planned on being in the South Bronx where this is very prevalent. The city had decided we were going to move into flushing but we took that idea and brought it with us to say health and nutrition is going to be a big part of what we do on a regular basis we had a prior experience with new york college for healthy school food and our organization called fitness and nutrition for kids fan for kids and we brought them with us to help us work on this journey, to help us create a school that not only is excelling academically, but helps us on a path towards better nutrition and health understanding. Because we had thought that it would be the perfect match.

We believe that eating healthy and living a healthy life helps you better academically, as well as it does in your outside of school life. It's so elementary and yet seemingly so far out of reach for so many schools. So this was really embedded in the culture and the constitution of this school from the outset. It wasn't like you came into a school and changed everything. school from from the outset it wasn't like you came into a school and changed everything this was you know the founding principles of a new school within the current existing system right right and sorry go ahead no no no go i was saying because uh because the mission of the school was to provide a health education one of the things that we were able to do is when we hire teachers,

we're able to make sure that they are on board with the mission. So the buy-in is already there. And you've met some of the teachers now. They have their own health and wellness missions individually. So they're half marathoners, they're runners, they're yogis. It's incredible, right? So how did this begin? I mean, you know, whose idea was it to sort of spearhead this school from the outset? I mean, I guess what I'm asking at really in a more general sense is, you know, I mean, my perspective is really from LAUSD in Los Angeles and the school districts where I live. And I've just noticed, you know, how difficult it is to do anything different or kind of outside the box politically, you know, for a whole variety of reasons. So, you know, what was it

you think that allowed you to kind of get a crack in the door and start to kind of shift the paradigm a little bit? Well, I'll tell you that this has certainly been a long time in the making. You know, it is our fifth year as a school. It's something we've been working on for six years. Right. Before the school even started, we were working on our partnerships. New York Coalition for Healthy School Foods, Fan for Kids. We had them ready to go with us five years ago when we opened.

And for the first few years, first two years or so, we're just trying to get ourselves up and running as a new school, brand new from the start. And it wasn't until I think it was year three that Christian started working with some of the kids and working with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to then get rid of chocolate milk. And I kind of view that as one of our big starting points

towards this revolution of sorts. But chocolate milk is the ultimate recovery drink. Come on, you guys. You've seen the ads, right? Yeah, well, there's also chocolate soy milk for books out there. And it came from the kids, which I think was the amazing part of that story. Our fan for kids instructor was teaching the kids about excess sugar intake and high fructose corn syrup in products. And one day at lunch, they were reading the label on their carton of milk,

and they realized how much sugar the chocolate milk had and that it also had high fructose corn syrup in the ingredients. So they went to the principal directly and said, we shouldn't be drinking this. There's something wrong with this equation. What are you doing here? You're breeding mutants.

Well, the way we look at this, and I think it's an understanding that may not have been clear in all of the ads, not ads, but all the articles that have come out, is this is what we're teaching on a regular basis. This is not something new for us that we're just throwing a vegetarian menu out. It's about how we're educating throwing a vegetarian menu out it's about how we're educating our kids on a regular basis so they have fitness and nutrition classes constantly our with the program that we have is in each class gets a nutrition class every week they're doing fitness on a regular basis in physical education. They're having recess every day. The teachers are involved and are invested, so we're teaching the kids about making healthy choices.

So it's really about the type of teaching that we're doing that involves so many aspects of their day to teach them how to live healthier lives and teach them how to make choices that they might not otherwise make. Yeah, I think that's a really important point. It's about creating a culture that becomes embedded in who these kids are. I mean, I think if you, and I, you know, in reading the articles, that didn't really come across, right? It's sort of like, oh, one day you guys woke up and decided to, you know, do this thing with the school lunches um and i'm not

so sure that how that would you know if you didn't have the culture that you had here where you know healthy living and eating and and teaching kids about nutrition and fitness and developing these kind of habits and independent thinking um didn't exist and just slapping a vegetarian school lunch on top of a typical school where that's not part of the culture, I'm not so sure that would work, at least not yet, right? You definitely need the buy-in on all levels from the kids on up. And I think when you asked about the paradigm shift, it obviously began from the ground, but I think we also happen to be in a very unique place at a unique time

when you have our mayor, who for good or bad, has tried to fight some of the war on the obesity epidemic through banning of the large sodas or the butter intake or the salt intake. So we happen to be in this very unique place where our mission kind of gels with everything that's happening in the city too. Which was certainly not intentional at the time, but it's kind of worked out that way. Well, it's indicative of

what's going on right now. I think they're sort of cousins in some regard. You know, Bloomberg's policies and what you guys are doing, but they're also distinct. I mean, I think they're sort of cousins in some regard, you know, Bloomberg's policies and what you guys are doing. But they're also distinct. I mean, you have a guy who's kind of trying to legislate habits. And, you know, I get it. It makes people talk about these issues, which I think is super important.

And it's kind of in the consciousness now in a way that it wasn't a couple of years ago. Whereas you guys are, you know, you're doing it differently. You're doing it organically and, you know, taking kids at a very young age where they're impressionable and they're forming these habits that are going to be with them their whole lives and, and, and teaching them so that they can be empowered to make their own best

decision. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Has the mayor been out here? He is not. You got to get him out here we would love to have him he's a pulpit stop for him you know what i mean there's a lot of political capital

he could be gained by making an appearance there i would think we had the chancellor in a few weeks ago and that was great he was very good with the kids and had lunch with us and the kids and talked about his triathlon experience and his running experience. So that worked really well. We would love to have the mayor in. We would love to have Michelle Obama in. We'd love to have Bill Clinton in. We have a relationship with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, which is partially funded from Bill Clinton Foundation.

So we're looking for an opportunity to disseminate our message further. Yeah, it's going to happen. I think it's going to happen. So I think it's also important to point out that you guys are, this is not like a charter school or some kind of special school, right?

You're just straight up public school. So kids that live in this area, every kid, elementary school attends here, right? So there is one distinction to make. Our school is slightly different from some others because we're not what's called a zone school. So it's not a necessity that everybody from this geographic area has to come here.

Instead, kids and their families apply to come here, and they get in through a lottery. Because we have simply, there's far too many kids that want to come. We don't have space for it. So example being, we have 36 seats for a pre-K. We have 400 applicants. 450 applicants for 100 seats in kindergarten. The parents make the choice to put in the application,

which is not always the case for an area zoned school. But nearly all of our kids come from the direct area. Right. And are there other schools doing what you're doing right now who are working with New York Coalition for Healthy School Food? I mean, is this going to start springing up in other neighborhoods in New York or what's going on there? The former charter school we worked at was Future Leaders Institute in Harlem,

and the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food was already there working with them. You'd have to ask Amy for exact numbers for New York City. But in terms of a health focus for schools, we partner with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. And I think they said at last count, they had 17,000 schools across the nation working within their framework to improve the health of their schools. So we're not the only ones out there. I think we're the only ones making the news because of our particular lunch program. But everybody's working on it in some way.

Right. And let's talk about the lunch. So what are these kids now eating? Sure. This is just dry lettuce, right? That's it? This is definitely one of the high points of what we're doing and what is certainly making the news at the moment.

But it's been about what we've worked towards. So some of the menu items, for instance, there's a black bean quesadilla with cheddar cheese and a salsa. That was the one that came out in the news. That was the big menu item. Last week was the first time the kids have had falafel, which went over really well. There's been a variety of variations

on trying to work with tofu. That's one menu item that they're still trying to work out what's the best seasoning for and how's it best prepared. Right, I read about the kids didn't like the big cubes so you're making them smaller cubes with a certain kind of sauce on it or something like that and there's opportunities to make that change we've been the official vegetarian test kitchen for new york city for about a year and a half so we'll have on occasion the head chef for the city come in and make certain vegetarian recipes that we can try with staff or we can try with kids right the head chef for the

city schools right right and this is something that again it took a long time to get to that point and a lot of pushing and a lot of back and forth and because we wanted it so badly to provide the healthiest options possible right so let's talk about the pushing i mean there had to be a political battlefield over this you know is i mean it couldn't have been easy you know because i know you know i remember, uh, when Jamie Oliver had his food revolution show, uh, a couple of years ago and the first season he was in Pennsylvania and did amazing work with the school system there. And I believe if, if my memory is correct, that they wanted to do a second season in, uh, in Los Angeles. And there was just too much political, you know, sort of upheaval,

upheaval over the whole thing. And they weren't able to make it happen. And when you have these, you know, big food companies that are making a lot of money off the foods that they're supplying to public school systems, you know, government organizations, you know, they have their lobbyists and whatnot. That, you know, that's got to be an uphill battle. that's got to be an uphill battle. And one of the hardest things for us in making these changes is that we have a school district in New York City that takes care of 1.1 million children. So the Office of School Food basically procures the food

for 1.1 million children. And so when you have this one school with a couple hundred kids saying, we'd like to do something different. We're going to fuck the system, right? The ordering systems have to change. So it wasn't something that was done overnight. But honestly, they've been working with us. So we've been able to do it because the Office of School Food has also been.

Do you think that's a top-down thing because of where Bloomberg's coming from? Actually, I don't think that it comes from Bloomberg himself, but it's been a part of the Office of School Foods, and they could see it as an opportunity. Now, we still all have to go by the USDA guidelines, and that's something that they monitor very closely in the Office of School Foods, making sure that there's the correct amount of protein in the beans that are served or in the falafel. So that type of oversight is a big deal for the Office of School Foods. And any menu item has to get approved through them.

Any menu item has to get approved through them. But the Office of School Foods was working with us towards creating these healthier options. And you're also dealing with a system that has somewhere between $1 and $1.50 per lunch to work with. One of the great things that the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food does, they basically create recipes within that cost range using materials or using foods and ingredients that are already being ordered by the Office of School Food. So we were able to create these recipes using basically stuff that we're already using. Right, so it didn't require getting completely new vendors and all of that. It's just sourcing different kinds of foods from the vendors that are already providing. Right, and I think that made it easier for the Office of School Food to be on board too. And so what do the kids think? How are they doing?

You could ask any of our kids at lunchtime, how they feel about it. And we've certainly had a lot of opportunities for that to happen. Lots of media come in. Vegetarian Times was in last week. We've had news stations from all over ask that question. And the kids will tell you that they're really excited about the options that they're provided now you will hear a kid say you know chicken nuggets was one of my favorites right well kids are kids you know sure and and for me to say that that doesn't happen you know you could call me a liar right but we really feel strongly that the kids have developed an understanding of why it is this way and they

were part of the process so i go back to tofu but the tofu was one where they had an opportunity to give feedback and say what they liked and what they didn't like and we have to be responsive to that in order for this to be successful and continue to be successful we have to be responsive to that. In order for this to be successful and continue to be successful, we have to be open to the kids' feedback because they're the ones that are eating the food. So something like the lo mein that's served, they absolutely love it. The falafel is new for them, but they were really interested in trying something new. We get kids that will cheer when there's hummus in the salad bar. Never expected hummus to be a huge hit, but it is.

That's amazing. So we're being responsive to what they are giving us feedback about too and making adjustments where necessary. There is also another neat story that came out of our kitchen with Miss Malini, our head cook. She's actually a parent. Right. I'd read that.

I was going to ask you about that. And she decided she wanted to try a recipe one day, a curried chickpea recipe. The kids loved it. It was just so good. And word went up that this was a good recipe to the point where now the city uses her recipe across the city. Wow. And it's called Malini's Curry Chickpeas on the citywide menu.

Oh, that's amazing. And was she the cook before instituting this policy, or did you have to bring in her afterwards to kind of deal with the new kind of parameters. It's been an interesting turn of events. So we had been working on doing two days a week vegetarian. About two years ago, we had started to try and do that. Last January, we got a new food service manager.

And we met with the food service manager and said, look, this is what we're working on. We want to increase the three days a week vegetarian. We want to increase the four days a week vegetarian. And it was getting her buy-in that was a big first step. We sat down with her then and said, well, let's look at the staff that we have in the kitchen currently. And we made some decisions that we needed staff that we have in the kitchen currently and we made some decisions that we need to make some changes in the kitchen staff so that because look making these type of meals does take some more time and effort there's more cooking involved than heating so we had to bring in a few people that were really into the message and wanted to be a

part of something special. So we brought in three new other kitchen staff to turn over the kitchen completely within six months. And within that time frame, our recipes really took a big change. So from January 2012 to June 2012 was a huge transformation for us. And a big part of that is to do with the personnel that was now in the kitchen. Right, creating new systems that can function smoothly, right? They work so hard down there, and they take pride in their work. You can tell in the quality of the food. Right. And so I guess trying to kind of get into the brains of some people that might be listening to this,

I can hear the questions swirling around like, why vegetarian? Why not just paleo? Or just get rid of the sodas? Or you guys are trying to decide who's going to feel this one? What was the decision process that arrived at vegetarian as the plan? Okay. I mean, I can take this one. Sure. We can go back and forth here. Yeah, I mean, from my own individual perspective, whether we're talking paleo or vegetarian,

I think there's a lot that various sides have in common, and it's moved towards more whole foods, higher quality foods, less processed foods. less processed foods. And so when we're looking at the meat being offered by our school food program in New York City, a lot of it is processed meat. I mean, we all saw the pink slime stuff in the news. We don't know exactly what grade the meat is all the time. So when we're going for the healthiest option,

the healthiest option happens to be the whole food plant-based option. Right. So it's really, I mean, vegetarian is this sort of easy term that encapsulates it, but it's really, it's more than just not eating meat. It's about getting rid of the processed foods and the foods with the chemicals in them and the extra sugar and all that kind of stuff. And I'll jump in to support Christian's statement on this because it was really never intended to be about being vegetarian school. We didn't set out five years ago to be a vegetarian school. educate our kids on what making healthy choices is, what it means, what it means to your families, and to teach kids how to live a healthy lifestyle. And so for us, it was always about

what are the healthiest options that we can provide kids. And we look at it in breakfast, we can look at it in lunch, we look at the snack policy across the city. And maybe I shouldn't say it, but I will anyway. The snack policy in the city is something that we've pushed back on. What is the snack policy? The approved list of snacks range from Oreos and Doritos to Sun Chips and beyond. And so for us, we've been trying to work on altering what that policy is. So we've had some back and forth conversations with the Department of Health and what happens when kids bring in chocolate milk or cookies? It's working towards a big sugar shock,

and then the kids end up crashing. In the crash, right. So not that you're conducting some kind of double-blind study here, but obviously just sort of observing behaviorally and in terms of academic performance? I mean, have you seen a shift already? Or I mean, already these kids are way ahead of every other kid just because of the curriculum that you had before the school lunch was shifted. But, you know, what kind of changes have you seen or, you know, in comparison to what you might see at a typical New York elementary school?

Well, we'll say a few things. One, to start with health. With Fan for Kids, and it's something they're doing right now actually too, we do assess their BMI at the beginning of the year and the end of the year. So from 2011 to 2012, 66.1% of our kids showed a significant reduction in BMI. Wow. And the numbers were pretty clear as to what the change in health was with those kids. Christian's bringing over the numbers to look at. In addition, in terms of no significant movement, we only saw 15% of the kids with what was defined as no significant movement.

In terms of BMI, you mean? In terms of BMI. And the numbers were just so clear. You can kind of draw a connection between what's happening with our health and nutrition and our test results. We certainly haven't done a study that can point that out directly, but last year we had 92% of our kids get threes and fours on the ELA. 86% get threes and fours on math.

Far ahead of the area averages. What is the ELA and what is that scale? It's a scale out of four. One, two, three, or four. And in comparison to the rest of the city, there was a significant difference. Right. We were rated the number four early childhood school in the city.

Had an A on our progress report. The reviews that come back are consistently positive for our building. And we believe that there's a significant portion of that has to do with how we're teaching kids to live healthy lives. And our attendance rates are incredible, too. Our attendance rates, I think, across the city range in the 88 to 90 percent range. And we consistently have 96 to 98 percent attendance rates. We only have 96 to 98% attendance rates.

One of our second grade classes had the highest attendance rate last month with a 99 point something percent. 99.1 for a class for a month. Wow. What are the citywide stats for attendance? Can you compare your stats to what the averages are across the rest of New York? In terms of BMI, I don't know if we've gone into that yet. Fan for Kids, with the programs that they work with in the city, have definitely said that we have surpassed the schools that they work with in the city.

And in terms of attendance rate, we're a good 8 percentage above right the rest of the city you know what's next like where are you taking this like what you know what's now you've achieved this i mean it's a monumental feat it's amazing you know i'm walking around the school just looking at you know looking at the kids and seeing what you guys are doing. And it's, it's no small thing. You know what I mean? It's really inspiring. And it sounds so trite to say, oh, you know, kids are the future and, you know, invest in kids and, and that kind of thing. But, but it's true. And you guys are doing it in a, in a really fundamental way. But it's true, and you guys are doing it in a really fundamental way.

You know, this is the way it should be at every school. Unfortunately, that's not the case. But I'm interested to hear, like, you know, what are some of the things that, you know, you're not doing now that you would like to see implemented over the next couple years? You want to start? I can jump in right after. Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the things, as the wellness coordinator of the school,

I'd like to connect to the schools in the neighborhood and see what we can do to help them out in terms of getting their lunch programs overhauled as well. Because one of the things that happens, we're a pre-K to third grade school, and our kids then go on to fourth and fifth grade at a local neighborhood school where this isn't happening.

And so we've seen some of our fourth graders come back with huge bags of potato chips, something you would not see here. And we say, we'll ask them, what's that about? And they say, well, it's allowed at our school. And they've gone through half a huge bag of potato chips in a day. They're relapsing yeah so in some ways we're hoping that what we teach them here

when they get older and can make more of their own food choices that it will have stuck with them i mean we have kids who who love kale and they're six seven eight years old i didn't get introduced to kale until i was 24 so i didn't get introduced to Kale until I was 24. I didn't get introduced to it until I was 40. In that sense, we're hoping the building blocks are there. But in terms of making sure that this continues

in their lifetime, or at least in their academic careers, we definitely want to make that connection with the local schools and make sure that they're doing right by the kids in terms of the school. Right. Yeah, it would seem like the logical next step would be to the next school in line to kind of start implementing these kind of programs would be the next school these kids are matriculating to so that they can get a consistent message throughout their youth. Right. consistent message throughout their youth, right? And one of the difficulties for us is that our kids go to three or four area schools,

so they don't funnel into one school that we could work with directly on this. But it's certainly an aspect that we've talked to the Office of School Foods and Wellness Programs about trying to create that opportunity. Some of the other things that we very much still want to do, we have a partnership with the Queens Botanical Gardens, and they're coming in actually next week to help us redo our garden space. Not a very big space, but we're hoping to be starting to plant cherry tomatoes and green beans and thyme and rosemary, basil. So we want to have

our kids not only have an opportunity to grow these things, but then use them in the kitchen and in their own food tastings. We want to provide them more opportunities to get outside and experience exercise in a different way. We want to build partnerships with the Mets, with the Red Bulls, for instance, and teach them about the exercise end of it. And I guess it kind of sounds like I'm making a pitch here, but maybe I am too. Yeah, I know in San Francisco, there East Palo Alto, which is a lower income town, there's the San Francisco 49ers Academy where the football franchise has literally kind of sponsored this school and the players get involved.

And it seems like that would be a great kind of fit for what you guys are doing with a local absolutely professional franchise i think it city field is almost throwing rock distance away from us so the mets would kind of be a natural partner for us if we could have that opportunity and to have the kids the kids are going up actually our third graders are going to an animal sanctuary in the catskills in a few weeks that they offered to bring our kids up when they heard the story. So that kind of experience is something completely new to our kids that often don't get out of the neighborhood. So we want them to experience what we're talking about outside of this area and have it here too. Bring people in that can talk about what it means to live a healthy lifestyle.

Show them an eco-friendly way to do it too. Get rid of styrofoam trays in our kitchen. That's still there that we would love to get rid of. I know the city's been talking about it. To do that, we need some outside help also but these are all things that we're working towards so there's still a lot more for us to do well a couple things i mean first of all in terms of kind of what you're doing right now i mean do you bring in um i mean how integrated are are the parents in what's going on here because

you know obviously if you're doing one thing here and something else is happening at home, dietarily or what have you, there's a disconnect. Our Fan for Kids program, the instructor has a few workshops throughout the year where they do healthy eating workshops. And she'll basically go over some ways that you can make smoothies and healthy snacks at home, things that are very quick and simple, but healthier options than a processed food from a bag. Right.

And we also have a family dinner night that the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food puts on with the Office of School Food. And basically they cook up the meals that they serve the kids, and then they'll do something new to try out. And then we invite all the families from the school. This past week, we had our family dinner. We had 150 to 200 people show up, and they get to taste the food that their kids are eating.

And so they get to taste it. I mean, that's a huge part of it, because then they can talk to their kids about it. They can try it at home. A lot of them had tried falafel for the first time last week. So now they know, going out into the world, that there's this really great chickpea thing that you can eat. Super creamy. And Bob, are there other school principals that are calling you saying,

what are you doing here? I want to learn about this. Can I come and visit? It would seem like you should have open house night for school administrators across the country to come and see what you guys are doing here. That's a great idea, Rick. I'll tell you before I open this up. Or the other principals call you and go, what are you doing? You're making me look bad.

Well, first of all, I'll say that anybody that's out there listening as a principal, if you do want to get in contact with us, we're open to having that conversation. Christian and I have done a lot of outreach and talked to a whole bunch of people in the last couple of weeks about trying to help and just give ideas. Sometimes we can help, sometimes we can't. Certainly with New York City, we have more in-depth knowledge than the email we got from Argentina asking us how to help. That's a little tough for us. But we had a principal who's opening up a school next year come to family dinner night and then spend an hour and a half with us the next day asking questions. How did you do this? What was the procedure? Who did you talk to?

Giving her specific names and places to contact in order to work on it. And it's the same message whenever we do talk to somebody like that. This is not something that you jump into by any means you need to have the buy-in of all of your community in order to even start the process right so the menu that we have is open to the whole city but the school has to make a choice and have the buy-in of the people in the building to start that process. And the students. The students.

Among them. Right, right. So we have had some of those people come to us, but we're open for having more conversations. And if somebody wants to get in touch with you for that purpose, why don't you tell me how they can do that? Is it through the website or we're actually working on revamping our website to make it easier

for people to find us but we have our school email address tails that's t-a-l-e-s dot p-s-2-4-4-q at gmail.com well and i'll put that in the show notes for people that are listening. And we also have a Twitter account, which we actually started a couple weeks ago when this all happened. I'm still learning how to do it, but getting better. At PS244Q. Isn't there another one? Because I tweeted it yesterday. Mr. L Science. Oh, there you go. That's you. Right on.

Cool. So yeah And I'll put that In the show notes too And getting back To what you were saying About growing your own food Christian took me You know

When he was giving me the tour He took me outside And you guys are already growing Tons of stuff out there I took a picture And I'll put that In the show notes as well I mean what are some of the things

You're growing out there Right now And you know How are the Like what is the process Of involving the kids in that? One of our teachers got a grant through a woolly pockets program. And so we have some easy stuff growing, broccoli, lettuce, radishes,

some other leafy greens we were told were the easiest stuff to grow on a fence. And each class got its own set of pocket or two. So they're looking out for their own veggies that they're growing. We actually have a tower garden in here, too. Oh, wow. Those are great. In our library. We started growing green leafy vegetables.

Some of our Fan for Kids food tastings use the lettuce from that in their food tastings, which is pretty cool. And so we're hoping to expand that, but a big part of it is having the kids have that experience of growing the food and eating their own food. It always tastes much better when you grow it yourself.

Of course. Is there some kind of antiquated Byzantine regulation, though, that prevents you from letting the kids eat something that's grown here? Or everything's good, okay to do that? Well, this is another opportunity, I would say, for us to work with the Office of School Foods. We've been working well with them in getting to this point. And it's something that we've talked to some of the kitchen staff about doing. So our staff here on site is all about it.

They want us to grow basil and see how we could use it. And it's also cool for the kids to see how it comes from seed to your plate, see the whole process. But we also do food tastings in classes on a regular basis. So that's something that we can do pretty easily. And we're not out on some plantation. I mean, this is a city block, right? And the food that you're growing are simply in these pouches that are hanging from a fence. And you have the tower in your library, right? So it's not about having all kinds of acreage to do this. You only need a little bit of space, right?

We certainly wish we had more space. And our roof isn't even worth, not that it's not worth, it's not a good spot for a rooftop garden. So without even that being accessible, we're really trying to utilize every little nook and cranny that we have. So the fences have turned out to be one of those spots yeah it's pretty cool i would i would really love to see our playground turn into a forest playground and if you've seen those from from over in england and i haven't no it's basically they they turn a concrete playground into a wooded playground with

natural areas to hide and bushes and little gardens where kids can grow their own things and tools that utensils that they can use. And it basically provides kids in an urban environment with this great natural wonder in their backyard. Right. I don't know how much that costs. Hopefully Oprah's listening. We could use some funds for that. Of course she's listening. Come on. I saw in the New York Times today, I tweeted it this morning. I don't know if you guys saw this.

This kid, Zach Maxwell. We love Zach. This kid is amazing, right? How cool is this? So he basically went undercover in his school, a public school. He wouldn't have had to go undercover here. Right. Well, he wouldn't have had to.

There's nothing to expose here. But I guess Lower East Side or in Manhattan, I think, or Little Italy. Yeah. there had been a sort of a hullabaloo about these celebrity chefs kind of, you know, creating new menu items for the public school system. And there was a lot of press about it and this whole initiative about improving school lunch for kids. And he kept coming home and saying, yeah, I don't know what that's all about. I don't know what Rachel Ray's recipe is all about because I'm not seeing it.

And his dad was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. No one would sort of pay attention to him. So he went undercover with a camera and started taking pictures and filming what was going on in the cafeteria and the foods that he was actually getting, which bore no resemblance to these fancy, healthy-sounding items. And actually, I think he got cracked down on, and the school wanted to confiscate his film, and he was able to sneak it out. And his dad, I guess, is an amateur videographer, and they've made this 20-minute movie,

a clip of which is in today's New York Times online. I'll post that in the show notes as well. But it's pretty funny and entertaining and amazing. How old is that kid? 10? He was a 4th grader. He's got to be about 10 or 11, right? Our assistant principal, Too Harris, said after reading about that, she said that she's gotten so used to seeing our food here that she'd forgotten what the food looks like in the outside world, like in the outside right

when the other public schools so when you see just a bunch of wilted green lettuce and they call it this colorful thing not even a bunch it was like literally one inch by one inch of lettuce with a with like a tiny piece of horrible looking carrot and then like a lousy piece of pizza the tomato salad with no tomato right the picture that from him, too, was even less than that. It was like four chicken nuggets, two plantains, milk and an orange that looked pretty rough. You've got to invite him over here. We should. You know?

Have him, well, if he's continuing to make a film, he could sort of, as a point in contrast, kind of film what you guys are doing here. Sure. You know? That would be cool well one of the one of the little projects that we've been talking about was trying to get mark bitman to come in and do a review of our of our kitchen and and just so you can people can have a comparison for what is happening here and the rest of the city because i think one of the one of the important pieces that we we go back to in terms of parent buy-in, you really want parents involved in schools, definitely in the health of their children.

I think if parents knew what their kids were eating every day, and I think the wonderful thing about Zach is that he's exposed it, there would be change happening. Yeah, because he was telling his parents, but they didn't believe him until he brought home footage. Right. It's kind of incredible how it's both what he has done and what we've been working on

ended up coming out so closely together. Right. But on the note of talking about kids and parents knowing what they eat in school, I had a parent come to me at the family dinner night, and he came around and said, had my ear for five or ten minutes to say, I was sending my kid with lunch every day

because I didn't know what you were serving. He didn't know what this change was. But once he had it himself on that family dinner night, he told me he would never send his child with their own lunch again. Wow. As they had an opportunity to try it and to buy in to what was happening here. Right. It's powerful.

And, you know, when you said, you know, it's interesting that, you know, Zach's little movie came out right around the same time that you guys have instituted this new school lunch you know i think that somebody asked me about that the other day he's like why does it seem like there's such a zeitgeist right now about plant-based eating you know you and and you know i just think people are looking for sustainable real change and you know right now like all right so the story came out about you guys may 1st right and then today we see zach maxwell's little movie uh rip esselston's new book my beef with meat came out earlier this week and i know he came and visited you and spoke to

the kids the other day i love i want to ask you about that yeah he's the best right he's he's the cool he's the plant strong king you know There's nothing not to love about him. And you mentioned Mark Bittman. He just had a book come out called Vegan Before Six. And there's all this sort of kind of activity around this right now. And it's really kind of a Malcolm Gladwell tipping point moment, I think, right now. And my hope is that, you know, it's just the beginning. I hope so, too.

Yeah. And, uh, and, and, you know, talking about integrating the parents, um, you know, that led me to, to want to talk to you about the culture that you've created here. Um, Christian and I were talking before, before the interview, uh, about how, you know, you kind of have to walk your walk. It has to be a cultural thing. Like the, the teachers, cultural thing. The teachers are all into wellness and health and all of that.

Christian, can you tell me a little bit about your personal story to being the plant-strong wellness director that you are now? It's interesting. I think that's powerful as well. What's interesting is that when we started the

school in 2008, I definitely was not plant strong. I was plant curious, I think I've heard you use before. Plant curious. I was definitely eating more veggies than most. But in January 2010, January 1st, 2010, my wife and I found out we were pregnant with our first child. And about a week later, I went to the doctor for some regular blood work. first 2010 my wife and i found out we were pregnant with our with our first child and about

a week later i went to the doctor for some regular blood work and the cholesterol came back 296 the small ldl particle was really elevated and the c-reactive protein was uh three times what it should be and the doctor who was your typical traditional doctor, just basically said, if you were a 55-year-old man, I'd take you to the hospital right now because we need to do further tests. He said, but because you're young and you know how to exercise and you know a little bit about eating healthy, I think we can just make some changes. And he gave me the typical Dr. Spiel of reducing your fried foods, not too much meat, and not too much takeout. But I went home, and I was thoroughly scared. My father died at 55 of a heart attack. My mom is a diabetic with heart disease.

And here I am having my first child not knowing what my life is going to be like. You're a young guy. How old are you? I'm 33, so I was 30 at the time. 30 at the time. Did you weigh more than you do now? I mean, you're a thin guy. I am a thin guy. I did not actually weigh more than I did. I happen to be one of those people that stays within a 10-pound range, regardless of what I do, unless I'm training for a marathon.

But yeah, I mean, being a healthy looking thin guy, I never thought there was much of a problem until the Thursday night. Right, you wouldn't think. And I think that's all the more powerful because, you know, look, if you're super overweight,

then obviously, you know, you got to work on some stuff. But if you're walking around, you're lean, you're 30 years old, 31 years old, there's no reason to believe that there's going to be anything wrong with your health. And then you get these numbers back. And what did your doctor, you know, what was the next step for you? I mean, what led you to kind of what you're doing now? So immediately, he put me on statins. And I went home and and spent hours on google just trying to figure out uh what my next steps were for me personally one of the things i wanted to do was get off the meds

uh and and so i found a doctor called the assistance book prevent reverse heart disease and so right there great example of using a plant-based diet to basically stop and even reverse what's happening in your arteries. So I bought that book. I bought Rip's book, End in 2 Diet, and I got to work. And so it's been a work in progress. I can't say it's 100% plant-strong the whole time, but recently I've been really good at it. I have blood work coming up next week, and I'm hoping to finally say goodbye to the meds. Yeah, I think you will.

That's good. Cool. And Bob, what kind of led you into this field? I mean, were you a principal or had been an administrator or a teacher at a more typical school? Or kind of what is your personal story that's led you to this point? of you know what is your personal story that's led you to this point so i christian and i actually started teaching together at the same time in 2002 we both teach for america teachers came into new york city and we were both teaching at the south bronx at the time and uh he actually got me into running i was a high school athlete but one of those high school athletes that didn't do much after high school. So we started teaching together. And at the time, I had always said that I wanted

to move on from teaching. And so about seven years into my teaching career, I said, all right, time to look towards administration. And we had gotten together this group of four of us to create that idea of having a unique public school. And I had come into it with the idea of starting in as the assistant principal and eventually coming up as a principal as well. Moves a little bit quicker than I had originally intended, but I was happy to take it on when the opportunity presented itself. So after our first three years of opening the building, I moved up to be principal. And as time goes on, I certainly want to affect education in a big way.

It's always been a goal of mine to try and have a large effect on education and something that both of us have talked about for a long time. In terms of health, Christian was certainly a big reason why I got into running and started doing sprint triathlons. But looking even further back than that, it's not that dissimilar. Our stories, both of my grandfathers died in their mid-50s of heart attacks before I was born. My father has been on blood pressure medicine since ever, as long as I can remember. I got on blood pressure medicine about five years ago.

It's been a struggle. I don't enjoy taking blood pressure medicine every day. And I'm certainly a work in progress. We all are. We call him Plant Curious for sure. I'm one of those guys that, you know, I'm not a vegetarian. I do eat my share of meat, but it's something that I'm getting better at and reducing. And, you know, for me to cook, which I did this week, I took one of the recipes from

Rip's book and I made it home for my fiance and I, and it's, it's something that I'm getting better at as I go here. And, and certainly being a part of this school and going where we have gone, I want to be better. I want to be healthier myself. And I've dabbled in vegetarianism, if we can say that. And I hope to continue along that path to get myself healthier and be able to affect education in a big way too. All right, Christian. You stay on him, right?

Oh, he does. Absolutely. He does. I bought him the end of two book. You did? Okay, good. He bought me the book, and his son is my godson, and he put a little PS in there.

He said, my son, Santi, wants you to stay around a long time, so eat healthy. That's sweet. Cool. I love it. he's definitely i mean made big changes when we first met 11 years ago we were i mean straight out of college burger eating french fries who is almost right you know every day and so to see you know bob eat kale and farro and and a bunch of other stuff he's never had before uh it's a big jump so he's come a long

way and we'll get we'll get him plant strong all right i consider myself a cadet in progress if we look at rip's book yeah we're running out of time and i know you guys got to go uh so i want to wrap it up with one final thing which is uh if there are you know there's teachers and and uh um administrators that that listen to the show uh if there's something that any kind of advice for a teacher out there that is trying to kind of implement, you know, just the smallest of changes in his or her classroom or within the culture of his or her school? I mean, is there, you know, what kind of advice or, you know, ideas could you offer? I think there's two things that worked out really well here for us. One was that we formed a school wellness council. And so on the school

wellness council, we have teachers who are interested in wellness. We have a school wellness council. And so on the school wellness council, we have teachers who are interested in wellness. We have the school nurse. We have our administrator. We have a parent from the PTA. And we invite one student from each third grade class. And we try to meet once every other month. And so to have all those people sitting at the table talking about wellness together,

I think that's a big reason why this is happening. We have these voices coming together with the common goal of improving the wellness of the school. So I think you have to find your wellness buddies at the school to work on anything. You can't do it alone. Right. And I said teachers and administrators,

but I guess there's lots of moms and dads, too have kids and can start with the PTA too, right? Like raising the issue with the PTA or the parent coming in and raising it with the teacher and seeing if they can kind of get a foothold. Right. And then the other thing was our nonprofit partners. nonprofit partners. We, when we set out with the mission to, to educate our students in health and nutrition, uh, as educators, we each had a different field of expertise, but that wasn't one of our fields. So we invited fan for kids and the New York coalition for healthy school food. And we worked with the Alliance for a healthier generation. And so we have these nonprofit groups that are already working on it. And so we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

They're already providing resources. They're on the phone answering questions. They're providing the nutrition education that we need. So if you feel like you're an individual educator or parent, you don't have to fight this battle alone. There are people out there who are already doing it and willing to help. I think that's a big point in saying there's help out there. There's people that can help make this journey possible.

It's been an effort for us to find people and work with them, but it's worked out so well for us in the long run. Finding partners, if you're in New York, New York Coalition for Healthy School Foods was huge for us. Right, and I was going to ask, are there organizations like that in other states? Well, the big one that we would recommend is the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. So they helped us set the standards. They helped us aim for what our big goals were going to be

and to eventually now be recognized as one of the top 0.04% of healthy schools in the nation. But in order to do that, they set standards for us. The amount of exercise that happens on a regular basis, what's going on in the kitchen, what kind of education are we giving kids? So you look for those opportunities to, one, set the standards, and two, set your goals and help guide you in a place to be. None of us went to school to be nutritionists. We didn't have that background. But it's something that you have to be open to learning and spending time with. Christian teaches science, full day science.

And I, as principal, have plenty of things going on. But we've dedicated time to this. Time outside of what would be a normal teaching day or a normal administrator's day to devote specifically for this purpose. It's a big commitment. Well, it's paying off. We think so. Yeah. You guys are doing amazing work here.

Like I said, I'm super inspired, and I can't wait to see this kind of thing cropping up in schools across the nation. And you guys are mavericks, and my hat is off to you. I applaud you. Thank you. Thank you. You're changing lives. You're changing lives.

So thanks so much. I know you guys got to go. As we were saying before we started, we were happy to have you in because as people that love to exercise ourselves, we get to look at you and say that's an opportunity for us to target. I don't think I'm going to be doing an ultra marathon or ultra Ironman anytime soon, but it's a good place to be. In other words, we want to be like you.

Well, listen, I'd love to come back. I'd love to talk to the kids too next time I'm in New York and keep doing what you're doing. For sure. We could have you over for lunch. All right. I would love that. Absolutely. That would be great.

All right. Cool. Thank you. Thank you, Rich. Thank you. Thank you for coming. All right.ご視聴ありがとうございました you you you you